PUNCHY PACIFIST PUNISHED

In mitigation Bartholomew Casella said Briggs was a “committed pacifist” and was “absolutely horrified by his behaviour”.

He told the packed courtroom that Briggs was a man of “far beyond good character, quite an exceptional young human being who has devoted a lot of time to helping others, who has rather selflessly gone about in his own way trying to make the world a better place.”

He said Briggs, of Bacon Lane, Kingsbury, North West London, did not smirk as he left the scene, but nervously smiled back at a bus passenger.

As you do after punching a teenager in the face. Briggs’ lawyer offered a Fisk defence:

Mr Casella said that Briggs was bullied as a child and was horrified that he had now turned into the bully and was capable of such violence.

Judge Peter Birts QC bought it:

He said Briggs was being punished by his own insight, but a custodial sentence was necessary to act as a deterrent and by way of reparation ...

“You are a serious, intelligent, hard-working and utterly decent young man of talent and ability and you will undoubtedly bear a heavy burden of guilt and sorrow about what you have done.

“It’s a tragic irony that you, yourself as a gifted musician and theatre lover, caused such great injuries to someone who is so talented and has given pleasure to so many others in life.”

So the law is different for different people? If a normally law-abiding soccer far knocks some guy into a coma, he’d face a five-year-stretch in the House of Many Doors because he can’t play music and hates the theater?

Some years ago I was visiting the UK and I happened to notice a small news item. A young foreign woman had been arrested on a train. She was being molested by a thug and pulled out a large knife. She was charged with concealing a dangerous weapon or something. I emphasise she did not use the knife.

She explained to the court that she carried the knife because she had been raped a year earlier.

Someone ought to point out to the court the terrible consequences, the costs of increased death and maiming, caused by the kind of “pacifism” practiced by this man. He is guilty of much more than the injury of one person. But that has nothing to do, one way or the other, with the case before the court, of course.

Most importantly, what does this man’s supposed good character have to do with the injustice perpetrated by him against his victim? All it does is add a second injustice, perpetrated by the entity that is supposed to protect him and make sure justice is done when someone victimizes him. I know it happens all the time these days, but it doesn’t mitigate the outrage I feel every single time it happens.

Shit, I’ve known Christiaan to spar with on the newsgroups, and I think this whole thing sucks. If he’d just learn from this, that he’s not the earthly embodiment of Peace, but that he has his own measure of flawed human nature to contend with. And that anyone who wants to impose utopia from without on others is in the same boat. But he seems obtuse. After the human shields debacle he went into hiding, and we never heard a peep from him on usenet. I thought he might have learned his lesson, and given up the peace activism as a bad joke and gotten on with his life.

And then I found his blog! What a hate -filled screed against the US and the UK - twice as bad as when he could be argued with on usenet. I’d like to hope that a syint in prison for crippling a guy might sober him up, but he’s already been given a hard lesson and failed to learn from it. My bet is he’ll emerge from prison even more “peaceful” than before, and will be blaming the system, or the Elders of Zion, but not himself, for what happened. And who knows how many more peaceful comas he will put people into??

Still, it’s an ill wind that blows no-one any good - at least now, with gaol-time for violence, the number of countries that will let him enter their borders for the purposes of “peaceful protest” has decreased dramatically.

No one ever completely recovers from a serious brain injury. That young man’s life has been forever changed because this idiot took him out with a sucker punch. For sure he’ll probably never have the musical career he planned for. And all the idiot gets is eight months in prison? I don’t call that justice, friggin’ punished by his own insight or not (which I highly doubt).

My family and I happened to be in England at the time of this attack. The tenor of the media coverage then (before they knew the attacker and presupposed him to be a NF-type) was extremely supportive of the victim, an up and coming alt rocker.

I guess Briggs’ lefty street cred cancelled out the other young man’s lefty street cred with the bienpensant crowd.

As # 10. Mark V. suggests, it might be nice for Briggsy to get to know others who beat victims for no reason.

Sidewager: Briggs signs up with the Religion of Peace while away at “college”.

Wow, sound’s like the Judge and Briggs ought to get a room. Good to know British law is being ajudicated by chinless closet-cases who are infatuated with their violent criminal’s rugged good looks and bad-boy attitude.

The judge’s sentence reads like an Iowahawk parody. Did the judge have a man crush on Briggs? Is he going to write to him in prison and ask him to be his Valentine? After Briggs get out, will he and the judge go to the theater together? I hope some English version of SNL makes relentless fun of these two.

I was wondering who the subject of Chris Masters’ second tome in a reportedly two-book deal would be. Perhaps he can do some thinking on the judge’s secret self intruding on public behaviour and out him. Oh wait, he’s is a left-wing judicial activist so does that count…?

As a point of reference, in the state of Texas, this crime would qualify as aggravated assault, a first degree felony, which carries a sentencing range of no less than 5 and no more than 99 years (though, probably toward the lower end of that range). I don’t know anything about British penal law, though.

And then when you hurt someone because you are unable to control the temper you’ve always denied existed, you can blame it on the other person for “making you lose control.” I wonder how many of these “pacifists” are abusive to their spouses and kids.

7 years for aggravated assault, ten for gbh in Queensland (if you can find a beak who wasn’t the former head of the civil liberties council, or the spouse of a sitting Labor eejit; seeing as there’s bugger-all of them, I’d say about 8 months would be the upper limit, and seeing as he’s a nice committed lefty pacifist it’d be somewhere tough like Palen Creek prison farm).

At least when he’s sprung I’d say Christiaan will be in for a one way trip to Heathrow, to be bunged on the next flight to Auckland. Hopefully once there he’ll ogle some member of the Mongrel Mob’s squeeze, and have to be removed from the tarmacadam with a large spatula.

At least when he’s sprung I’d say Christiaan will be in for a one way trip to Heathrow, to be bunged on the next flight to Auckland.

Hey there’s always a bright side: I could always buy him that beer I promised him, all those years ago… Hmmm, better make that something non-alcoholic. And I’d better make sure he promises to not be “peaceful” towards me…

Don’t know about the UK, but certainly here a conviction for an indictable offence would have the Minister for Immigration seeking your removal upon completion of the term, with your elibility for a visa rescinded. The bastard’s just as likely to turn up here though, and fib about his record; just what we need, another punchy kiwi crim. Maybe he can sign on as a bouncer up the ‘Cross.

NZ would love to have him back, particularly the NZ Greens. He was a fierce defender of their policies, no matter how pointless or stupid. I’m sure they’ll stick with him through thick and thin, as you’d expect these peace-loving types to do.

He should have been locked up for a lot longer to think about what he did.

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I remember a New South Wales judge was sentencing a man for the rape and attempted murder of a woman (she was left for dead in a park in Wagga or Albury-Wodonga with her throat slit from ear to ear and multiple stab wounds), the judge said that the sentence shouldn’t be the most severe for the crime as, because the woman was semi-conscious when she was raped she didn’t suffer as much as if she had been conscious.

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